Optimizing For Amazon

Our primary focus at Hit Me SEO is to optimize local businesses for local search. If you are trying to capture clients looking for a DUI attorney, plumbing contractor, heating and air conditioning professional, garage door repair, or any other local search, we are the company you want to speak to first. We have helped hundreds of businesses over the years increase traffic, conversions and sales, and most of those same clients are with us four and five years later.

However, there is an area of online marketing we have not done a lot with, and it has produced some big profits for many, many people. That online avenue is Amazon. There are millions of products to choose from, and many of those can be delivered within a day or two. Depending on where you live, you can even have some items shipped same day.

Since we have been receiving so many questions about ranking on Amazon, we wanted to share this article from Higher Visibility. We read a ton of their blogs, and almost always find useful and relevant information to act on. This post was a revision of 2015, and they have updated many of the key areas. If you are looking to rank and bank using Amazon, this is a solid guide to help you out. Enjoy!

Tips and Tricks to Ranking Well on Amazon

Before jumping into optimization tips, it’s important to really stress that Amazon is different than Google in a few fundamental ways. You’ll notice that many of the tips below are very similar, but understanding how Amazon is different than what you might be used to is crucial. According to a Moz article, there are four major differences between Amazon and Google:

Conversion vs. user satisfaction. Google was built to sell ads; Amazon was built to sell products. This means Amazon finds success by measuring revenue or gross margin per search as opposed to Google’s success metrics like CTR or time spent on a page.

Structured vs. unstructured data. Amazon’s index is completely structured, meaning you need to give them exactly what they want in their specific format. Google is a little bit more lenient (although this is slowly changing in 2015).

On-page vs. on-page and off-page. Amazon is really all about on-page optimization. Building links off-page will not affect your rankings the way it will for Google.

Compelling vs. unique content. Most of your traffic will come from someone who is already searching on Amazon, and Amazon doesn’t care about unique content nearly as much. If you have the same titles and bullet points as another listing, no problem.